Watch or buy this movie:

Get it now on:

Common Sense is a nonprofit organization. Your purchase helps us remain independent and ad-free.

A lot or a little?

The parents' guide to what's in this movie.

Positive messages

The plot is pretty much an album of calculated, anti-social acts, from pointless brawls and hazing to impersonating leukemia victims and organized vandalism sprees, all explained as rebellion against a desolate consumer society.

Positive role models & representations

Lead male character driven to psychosis by the tedium of contemporary society. Meets female lead character at cancer support group meetings, where they both go to vicariously observe the suffering of others. Lead character begins to believe that fighting is a solution to the emasculation of contemporary society, which leads to vandalism and more extreme acts of terrorism.

Violence

As the title implies, frequent fighting between men, under the pretense of reclaiming their masculinity and getting in touch with the primal in a sterile consumer society. Faces beaten and bruised, including one man's face beaten until pulpy and covered in blood. Members of the "fight club" are told to start a fight with a total stranger in public. Threats of and actual suicide by gun to mouth. Car crash after character stops steering and allows the car to careen into oncoming traffic before crashing into a ditch. Acts of urban vandalism result in the death of one of the characters, shot by a police officer and shown bleeding out the back of his blown-out head. Graphic scene in which scalding acid is burned on character's hand as a test of strength as the character screams and writhes in intense pain. Character has visions of a plane crash. Skyscrapers detonated by planted explosives.

Sex

Two characters have loud and passionate sex. Nudity: Female breasts, male buttocks. The female character says she "hasn't been f--ked like that since grade school." Much talk of the breasts that grew on a male supporting character because of hormone treatment. While working as a projectionist in a movie theater, one of the characters splices in frames of pornography into family entertainment, one frame shots of penises; this is done in the actual movie at the very end. Reference to sex toys.

Language

After sex, a female character says she has "not been f---ked like that since grade school." "S--thole." F-word used several times.

Consumerism

Addresses and satirizes materialism and commercialism, and how consumer culture is, for many Americans, linked to self esteem. References to Starbucks. One of the characters orders from an Ikea catalog. Characters drink Busch beer.

Drinking, drugs & smoking

Vodka and beer drinking. Cigarette smoking. Scenes in bars. While threatening suicide, a woman talks of being high on Xanax.

What parents need to know

Parents need to know that Fight Club is the 1999 movie based on the Chuck Palahniuk novel in which Edward Norton plays an insomniac office worker who meets his masculine ideal opposite with whom he begins to get in touch with his primal self as well as a desire to sabotage consumer culture. Impressionable kids and teens are likely to miss the dark satire while witnessing numerous examples of graphic beatings, vandalism, shootings, and bombings. The overall cloud of nihilism permeating this movie, the lead character's attempts to place subliminal one-frame shots of pornography in family movies in a theater where he works as a projectionist, scenes in which characters who work in restaurants urinate in food, a scene in which the female lead, after engaging in loud and passionate sex, says, "I haven't been f--ked like that since grade school," as well as the aforementioned graphic violence, make this best for audiences mature enough to see the film's deeper messages on the ways in which consumer culture warps our individuality and self esteem. There's also frequent profanity, nudity, smoking, and drinking.

What's the story?

Ed Norton's central character is nameless (Closed-Captioning and DVD menus call him either Jack or Rupert), a bored office worker suffering from alienation-induced insomnia. He can only sleep after attending anonymous support groups for alcoholics and cancer victims, although he is neither. That option disappears when he finds a hostile woman, Marla (Helena Bonham-Carter) doing the same thing, for kicks and free food. He meets a charismatic soap salesman and part-time movie projectionist named Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), with more extreme coping solutions for modern life. The duo forms a "fight club," beating each other for the primal thrill. The notion attracts other bored young men, and soon a number of secret Fight Clubs pummel themselves throughout the city. For Tyler, though, it's only the beginning of something he calls "Project Mayhem," orchestrated sabotage to overthrow the consumerist society. He's already been conducting his campaign on a small scale by splicing subliminal frames of pornography into family movies. Now, using Fight Club as an underground army, he spearheads bombings and monkey-wrenchings against The System. Rupert (or Jack, or whoever) watches Tyler's progress with alarm, as his own condo explodes and police link him to the attacks. Worse, Marla resurfaces, and a dangerous love triangle forms between her, the Ed Norton character, and Tyler. We already know from the film's dynamic opening that Tyler will end up holding a gun on his former friend, and the storyline is a flashback. Not necessarily a reliable flashback, though, and Fight Club has a celebrated Sixth Sense-style plot surprise that demands the viewer rethink all that's come before.

Is it any good?

Even without the whiplash revelation, the film is a wild ride. Among its many inside jokes and eccentricities, the filmmakers, in imitation of Tyler, stuck single-frame subliminal nude photos into the feature. Not-so-subliminal are incidents of extreme violence, as Fight Club members hold nothing back (and wear no boxing gloves), and a sex scene with Marla that's no less intense for being mostly CGI.

FIGHT CLUB derives from a novel by trendy author Chuck Palahniuk, whose book actually has a stranger, more downbeat ending than the movie. You wouldn't want kids to use either as a blueprint for behavior (at least the filmmakers made certain that the bomb-making recipes in the script are ineffective). Unlike Brazil, another striking cult picture that advocates terrorism against dehumanizing forces, Fight Club at least claims to take place in the real world. We can only recommend it for older teenagers who recognize it as more of a punk satire than a real call to arms.

Talk to your kids about ...

Families can talk about the cynicism and anarchy shown here. What pushes the main characters to behave that way? Why do the narrator and Marla have a fascination with self-help groups? How are the extremely flawed characters here somehow likeable?

What would be the challenges in adapting a novel like Fight Club into a movie?

This movie, with its acts of vandalism and terrorism, was released two years before the attacks of September 11th, 2001. Could a movie like this be made after 9/11? Should a movie like this be made after 9/11? Does the film's style and message seem relevant to today or dated?

Common Sense is the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century.

Headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Washington, D.C.

Help center

Follow Common Sense Media

Common Sense, Common Sense Media, Common Sense Education, and Common Sense Kids Action, associated names, associated trademarks, and logos are trademarks of Common Sense Media, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization (FEIN 41-2024986).

An email you'll actually read

You’re all set!

Look out for our weekly updates soon.

Follow us:

Each week we send a customized newsletter to our parent and teen subscribers. Parents can customize their settings to receive recommendations and parent tips based on their kids' ages. Teens receive a version just for them with the latest reviews and top picks for movies, video games, apps, music, books, and more.

Get age-based movie reviews, app recommendations, and more for your kids.